Systems and methods for managing storage of duplicate copies of a media asset at a storage device

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for detecting duplicate copies of a media asset and deleting or offloading one of the duplicate copies to different user devices. Specifically, a media guidance application, implemented at user equipment, may be used to record or store media assets from different media sources. The media guidance application may detect a duplicate copy of a previously stored media asset by comparing various attributes of the media asset. After detecting a duplicate copy of a media asset, the media guidance application may determine which of the duplicate copies of the same media asset is to be deleted, or to be transmitted for storage at a different user device.

BACKGROUND

Existing media systems use a media asset identifier to identify eachmedia program. However, different media recordings having differentmedia asset identifiers can correspond to the same media program. Forexample, an episode of “Big Bang Theory” may be recorded from the NBCchannel, and assigned with one identifier and the same episode of “BigBang Theory” may be recorded from the SHOWTIME channel and assigned adifferent identifier. When the existing media system, such as a personalrecorder, uses the media asset identifiers to arrange and sort therecorded media programs, the duplicate copy of the same recorded episodemay not be identified and thus wastes storage space on the digital videorecorder (DVR).

SUMMARY

Accordingly, systems and methods are disclosed herein for detectingduplicate copies of a media asset and saving different duplicate copiesat different user devices and/or deleting one of the duplicates.Specifically, a media guidance application, implemented at userequipment, may be used to record or store media assets from differentmedia sources. The media guidance application may detect a duplicatecopy of a previously stored media asset by comparing various attributesof the media asset, e.g., the media asset title, the media assetdescription, the casting member list corresponding to the media asset,the media asset episode index, the media asset season index, and/or thelike. After detecting a duplicate copy of a media asset, the mediaguidance application may determine which of the duplicate copies of thesame media asset is to be deleted and/or transferred for storage to adifferent user device.

The media guidance application may identify a first media asset from adatabase of previously stored media assets, and determine a first set ofattributes corresponding to the first media asset. For example, in someembodiments, the media guidance application may retrieve metadatacorresponding to the first media asset, and a list of pre-definedattribute types, such as but not limited to an English titlecorresponding to the first media asset, a title in a foreign languagecorresponding to the first media asset an index corresponding to themedia asset, a description of the media asset, an actor namecorresponding to the media asset, a director name corresponding to themedia asset, a display resolution parameter corresponding to the mediaasset, a media asset length, a user rating, and a media asset ratingcorresponding to the media asset, and/or the like. For each pre-definedattribute type from the list of pre-defined attribute types, the mediaguidance application may parse the metadata to extract datacorresponding to the pre-defined attribute type.

The media guidance application may search for a second media asset thatis also stored and that has a matching attribute with one or more of thefirst set of attributes, and receive a second media asset that hasmatching attributes with the one or more attributes and a second set ofattributes corresponding to the second media asset. For example, thesecond media asset may have the same title as the first media asset. Foranother example, the media guidance application may extract a first setof frames from the first media asset and a second set of frames from thesecond media asset, and compare the two sets of frames to determinewhether the two sets of frames share overlapping features that exceeds asimilarity threshold.

The media guidance application may compare the first set of attributescorresponding to the first media asset with the second set of attributescorresponding to the second media asset to generate a similarity metricbetween the first media asset and the second media asset. For example,in some embodiments, for each attribute from the first set ofattributes, the media guidance application may form a query on thesecond set of attributes based on the respective attribute. The mediaguidance application may determine, in response to the formed query,whether a respective matching attribute that overlaps with therespective attribute for more than a pre-defined threshold is identifiedwithin the second set of attributes. In response to determining that therespective matching attribute that overlaps with the respectiveattribute for more than the pre-defined threshold is identified withinthe second set of attributes, the media guidance application mayidentify a respective overlap percentage that the respective attributefrom the first set of attributes overlaps with the respective matchingattribute from the second set of attributes. The media guidanceapplication may retrieve attributes from the first set of attributesthat have a respective matching attribute from the second set ofattributes. The media guidance application may determine the similaritymetric between the first media asset and the second media asset bycomputing a weighted sum over all overlap percentages between theretrieved attributes and their respective matching attributes. Eachoverlap percentage may be weighted by a pre-defined weight correspondingto a type of the respective attribute.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compareattributes of different data formats, e.g., the same attribute type maybe represented in different data formats in the first set and the secondset of attributes. For example, the media guidance application mayretrieve a first attribute having a first data format from the first setof attributes and a second attribute having a second data format fromthe second set of attributes. The media guidance application maytranslate, via a lookup table specifying variations of data formatscorresponding to each attribute type, the first attribute having thefirst data format to the second data format, and then compare thetranslated first attribute with the second attribute.

The media guidance application may then determine whether the firstmedia asset and the second media asset correspond to the same mediacontent based on the similarity metric. For example, the media guidanceapplication may compare whether the similarity metric is greater than apre-defined similarity threshold.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thefirst media asset and the second media asset correspond to the samemedia content by applying a comparison logic rule. The comparison logicrule specifies a matching scenario where an attribute match for a firsttype of attribute and an attribute mismatch for a second type ofattribute are identified. For example, two media assets may have thesame title, the same actor, but a different production year. In thiscase, the two media assets may have a high similarity metric, but arestill deemed different. The media guidance application may determinewhether attributes of the first type and of second type from the firstset of attributes and counterpart attributes of the first type and ofsecond type from the second set of attributes satisfy the matchingscenario specified in the comparison logic rule. In response todetermining that the attributes of the first type and of second typefrom the first set of attributes and the counterpart attributes of thefirst type and of second type from the second set of attributes satisfythe matching scenario specified in the comparison logic rule, the mediaguidance application may apply a comparison result specified in thecomparison logic rule that indicates whether the first media asset andthe second media asset correspond to the same media content.

After determining that the first media asset and the second media assetcorrespond to the same media content, the media guidance application mayselect an action to perform relative to one of the first media asset andthe second media asset based at least in part on the first set ofattributes and the second set of attributes, e.g., to delete one of theduplicate copies, to offload one of the duplicate copies for storage ata different storage device, etc.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine aconfidence level relating to automatically performing the selectedaction relative to the one of the first media asset and the second mediaasset. For example, the media guidance application may combine thesimilarity metric and a success metric to generate the confidence level.The success metric represents a past success rate of incidents when nouser correction was received to revert automatic performance of theaction. For example, the media guidance application may retrieve andsearch a record of previously performed actions and respective mediaassets that the actions have been previously performed, based on one ormore attributes corresponding to the one of the first media asset andthe second media asset. The media guidance application may thencalculate the success metric as a percentage of successful occurrencesamong the subset of previously performed actions. In each successfuloccurrence, no user correction to revert the respective action wasrequested after the respective action was automatically performed. Themedia guidance application may then determine the confidence level as aweighted sum of the similarity metric and the success metric usingpre-defined weights.

In response to determining that the confidence level is greater than apre-defined confidence threshold, the media guidance application mayautomatically perform the determined action relative to the one of thefirst media asset and the second media asset, e.g., to delete or offloadthe duplicate copy to a different device.

In response to determining that the first media asset and the secondmedia asset correspond to the same media content, the media guidanceapplication may retrieve information relating to a first storage device(e.g., a local storage device associated with a personal video recorder,etc.) and a second storage device (e.g., a user mobile device)corresponding to a user profile. The media guidance application maydetermine whether any of the first media asset and the second mediaasset has one or more attributes that correspond to characteristics ofany of the first device and the second device.

For example, in some embodiments, the media guidance application maydetermine, based on a type of the first device, the characteristics ofthe first device, such as but not limited to a display dimension, adisplay type, a memory volume, ownership information (e.g., whether theaccount associated with the first device is subject to any parentalcontrol rules, etc.) and a network connection, and/or the like. Themedia guidance application may determine whether one or more attributesfrom the first set of attributes correspond to the characteristics basedon one or more pre-defined association relationships. For example, thepre-defined association relationship may specify that a high-definitionmedia asset is to be displayed at a television device, instead of ahandheld mobile device. In response to determining that the one or moreattributes from the first set of attributes correspond to thecharacteristics based on one or more pre-defined associationrelationships, the media guidance application may append the firstindication of the first device to metadata corresponding to the firstmedia asset.

For another example, in some embodiments, the media guidance applicationmay determine a viewing pattern involving the first device from viewinghistory from the user profile. The viewing pattern includes a parametersuch as but not limited to a media asset type, a media quality, a mediaasset title, a media asset genre, a media asset source, a media assetlength, and/or the like. The media guidance application may thendetermine whether one or more attributes from the first set ofattributes correspond to the parameter from the viewing pattern, e.g.,the same media asset source, etc.

In response to determining that the first media asset has attributesfrom the first set of attributes that correspond to characteristics ofthe first device and the second media asset has attributes from thesecond set of attributes that correspond to characteristics of thesecond device, the media guidance application may store the first mediaasset at the first storage device, and transfer the second media assetfrom the first storage device to a second storage device (e.g., a usertablet computer. For example, the media guidance application may store ahigh-definition copy of the same media asset that has a large file sizeat a personal video recorder, and transmit a standard-definition copythat has a relatively smaller file size to another device such as amobile device, a tablet computer, and/or the like.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may store both thefirst media asset with a first indication of the first device and thesecond media asset with a second indication of the second device. Themedia guidance application may generate, for simultaneous display, afirst indication of the first media asset and the second media assetwith a second indication of the second media asset. For example, when auser searches for a title of the media asset, the media guidanceapplication may present an icon noting a previously recordedhigh-definition version, and another icon noting a previously recordedstandard-definition version. The first visual indication is selectableto playback the first media asset at the first device, and the secondvisual indication is selectable to playback the second media asset atthe second device.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may automaticallyrecommended a media asset that is different from the user requestedmedia asset based on the available copies. For example, after storingboth the first media asset with a first indication of the first deviceand the second media asset with a second indication of the seconddevice, the media guidance application may receive a user request toplayback the second media asset at user equipment corresponding to thefirst storage device, and the user request includes identifyinginformation relating to the second media asset. For example, the usermay request to playback a standard-definition copy on a television set,while a high-definition copy is available. The media guidanceapplication may determine a recommendation confidence level to playbackthe first media asset instead of the second media asset at the userequipment in response to the user request. For example, the mediaguidance application may retrieve the similarity metric between thefirst media asset and the second media asset, and determine a differencescore by comparing the identifying information corresponding to thesecond media asset with the first set of attributes corresponding to thefirst media asset. For example, the difference score indicates whetherand how much the identifying information of the user requested mediaasset differs from the first media asset intended for recommendation.The media guidance application may then determine the recommendationconfidence level by subtracting the difference score from the similaritymetric.

In response to determining that the recommendation confidence level isgreater than a pre-defined recommendation confidence threshold, themedia guidance application may transmit the first media asset to thefirst device, instead of the second media asset that is identified inthe user request. In response to determining that the recommendationconfidence level is less than a pre-defined recommendation confidencethreshold, the media guidance application may generate, for display, avisual element indicative of a recommendation of the first media assetto be transmitted to the first device. For example, when the user asksfor a previously stored media asset recorded from a certain channel butthe same media asset recorded from a different channel with higherdefinition is available, the media guidance application may recommendthe copy with a higher definition to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may inspect whetherstoring any of the first media asset and the second media asset violatesany configuration rules, e.g., parental control, etc. For example, themedia guidance application may retrieve, from a user profile, a set ofmedia asset configuration rules including at least one or morerestrictions on the first device to receive a media asset. The mediaguidance application may determine whether storing the first media asseton the first storage device exceeds any rule from the set of media assetconfiguration rules. In response to determining that storing the firstmedia asset on the first storage device exceeds a rule from the set ofmedia asset configuration rules, the media guidance application maycause the first media asset to be transferred from the first storagedevice to the second storage device.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may store, at thefirst storage device of the first user device, the first media assethaving a first media asset identifier transmitted from a first mediasource, and store, at the first storage device of the first device, thesecond media asset having a second media asset identifier transmittedfrom a second media source. The second media asset identifier may bedifferent from the first media asset identifier. In response todetermining that the first media asset and the second media assetcorrespond to the same media content, the media guidance application mayretrieve a first attribute from the first set of attributescorresponding to the first media asset and a second attribute from thesecond set of attributes corresponding to the second media asset. Boththe first attribute and the second attribute relate to a characteristicof the first device. The media guidance application may determine afirst matching level indicative of whether the first attribute isconsistent with the first characteristic of the first device based onone or more pre-defined criteria, e.g., whether the screen dimension,definition type, and/or the like of the first media asset matches thoseof the first device. Similarly, the media guidance application maydetermine a second matching level indicative of whether the secondattribute is consistent with the first characteristic of the firstdevice based on the one or more pre-defined criteria. The media guidanceapplication may compare the first matching level with the secondmatching level. In response to the comparing, the media guidanceapplication may keep one of the first media asset and the second mediaasset with a higher matching level at the first storage device of thefirst device. The media guidance application may then transmit a query,on the information relating to one or more user devices corresponding toa user profile, based on the respective attribute corresponding to oneof the first media asset and the second media asset with a lowermatching level. In response to the query, the media guidance applicationmay identify the second device having a second characteristic that isconsistent with the second attribute based on the one or morepre-defined criteria. The media guidance application may then transmit,to the second storage device of the second device, the second mediaasset, and in turn remove the second media asset from the first storagedevice of the first device.

It should be noted that the systems, methods, apparatuses, and/oraspects described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with,other systems, methods, apparatuses, and/or aspects described in thisdisclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative diagram for recording and detectingduplicate copies of media assets that correspond to the same mediacontent at the storage device of user equipment, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 depicts an illustrative diagram for determining and sending oneof the duplicate copies of the same media content for storage at adifferent user device, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 3 depicts an illustrative diagram for generating, for display,indications of the duplicate copies at the user equipment and theavailability of each duplicate copy, in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide media guidance application listings and other mediaguidance information, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 5 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide media guidance application listings, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment (UE) devicein accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for detectingduplicate copies of a media asset and saving different duplicate copiesat different user devices, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 9 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for recommending acopy of a media asset for playback at a user device after detectingdifferent duplicate copies of the media asset are available, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 10 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether two media assets correspond to the same media content, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 11 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether any of the duplicate copies of media assets corresponds to oneof the storage devices from a user profile, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 12 depicts an illustrative flowchart of additional embodimentsrelating to performing an action relative to a duplicate copy of a mediaasset, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 13 depicts an illustrative flowchart of additional embodimentsrelating to selecting an action to perform relative to one of theduplicate copies of the media asset, in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure;

FIG. 14 depicts an illustrative flowchart of additional embodimentsrelating to determining a confidence level relating to automaticallyperforming an action relative to a duplicate copy of a media asset, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 15 depicts an illustrative flowchart of additional embodimentsrelating to determining which one of the duplicate copies of the mediaassets is to be automatically deleted, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for detecting duplicate copiesof a media asset and saving different duplicate copies at different userdevices. Specifically, a media guidance application, implemented at userequipment, may be used to record or store media assets from differentmedia sources. When each recorded or stored media asset is assigned witha unique media asset identifier, the media guidance application maydetect media assets that are duplicate copies of the same media program,e.g., a television show, a sports game, a movie, etc., by comparingvarious attributes of the media asset, e.g., the media asset title, themedia asset description, the casting member list corresponding to themedia asset, the media asset episode index, the media asset seasonindex, a set of media asset frames, the media asset digital signature,and/or the like. For example, when two media assets having two distinctmedia asset identifiers (e.g., as the two media assets are recorded fromdifferent channels and may be interleaved with different commercialsessions, etc.) share the same title, the same director name, the sameactor and actress list, and the same episode index, the two media assetsmay likely be related to the same media program. After detectingduplicate copies of the same media program, the media guidanceapplication may determine whether to store the two media assets that areduplicate copies, or to delete one of the duplicate copies, or totransmit one of the duplicate copies for storage at a different userdevice. For example, the media guidance application may keep theduplicate copies as different versions of the same movies at a personaldigital recorder, e.g., a high-definition version, a standard-definitionversion, an editor-special version, and/or the like. For anotherexample, if the media guidance application has determined that the userusually chooses to watch a high-definition version, the media guidanceapplication may automatically delete the standard-definition version.For another example, the media guidance application may determine thatone of the duplicate copies is an edited family-friendly version, andmay then deliver the respective media asset to a user device, e.g., atablet owned by a minor in the household.

In some embodiments, to determine whether to delete, and which one ofthe two media assets that are duplicate copies of the same mediaprogram, the media guidance application may evaluate how confident it isto automatically delete a duplicate copy. For example, the mediaguidance application may evaluate a confidence level of any action takentowards to one of the duplicate copies, e.g., to delete the copy, or tooffload the copy to a different device, etc. The confidence levelcombines a metric that evaluates how similar the two media assets are,and a metric that indicates how and whether one of the two media assetsis to be deleted in similar past scenarios. For example, if any recordedmedia assets from the ABC Family channel is played on a user tablet,then the media guidance application may have a high confidence level todeliver a duplicate copy of media asset recorded from the same channelto the tablet.

As referred to herein, the term “media source” refers to any data sourcethat provides a media asset that can be transmitted for recording orstorage at user equipment. For example, a media source may include, butnot limited to, a television network channel, an Internet televisionchannel, an online streaming channel, an on-demand source, anover-the-top (OTT) source, any service provider, and/or the like. Asreferred to herein, the term “attribute” refers to the value of aspecification parameter. As used herein, the term “attribute type”refers to the name of the specification parameter corresponding to therespective attribute. For example, an attribute type of a media assetmay include, but not limited to a media asset title, a media assetduration, a media asset description, a media asset cast member list,media asset soundtrack information, a media asset production companyname, a media asset production year, a set of media asset frames, amedia asset digital signature, and/or the like. Accordingly, anattribute corresponding to the movie “Terminator” may include, but notlimited to the title “Terminator,” the duration of 117 minutes, thedirector name “James Cameron,” the actor name “Schwarzenegger,” theproduction year of 1984, and/or the like.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded oncomputer-readable media. Computer-readable media includes any mediacapable of storing data. The computer readable media may be transitory,including, but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagneticsignals, or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to,volatile and non-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as ahard disk, floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, registermemory, processor caches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

It is to be noted that embodiments described herein may be implementedby a media guidance application, or any other data search and analysistool that is configured to access a databased of previously storedfiles.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not use. As referred to herein, thephrase “user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,”“electronic device,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,”or “media device” should be understood to mean any device for accessingthe content described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters” or providers” logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

As referred to herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated asa result of. For example, a first action being performed in response toa second action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred to herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative diagram 100 for recording and detectingduplicate copies of media assets that correspond to the same mediacontent at the storage device of user equipment or at a cloud server, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Diagram 100 shows auser 102 operating a user device 114, user equipment 106 which may beintegrated with, or include a set-top box with a local storage device110. The set-top box may be configured to implement a media guidanceapplication. At the user equipment 106, one or more media assets 108 maybe played, and may be recorded by the media guidance application bytransmitting the media asset 108 for storage at the storage device 110.In another example, the storage device 110 may represent a cloud storagedevice that is located at a cloud server, e.g., see data source 716 thatis accessible via communications network 714 in FIG. 7. The media assets111 and 112 may thus be recorded by the media guidance application andstored at the cloud server.

For example, the storage device 110 may include a plurality ofpreviously stored media assets, including but not limited to a“Terminator” movie 111 having a high definition recorded from the HBOchannel, a sequel of the “Terminator” movie 112, and/or the like. Indiagram 100, the user 102 may send a request to record a media asset,e.g., by a voice command 115, or by configuring a recording schedule viaa user interface on the user device 114, etc. Thus, after the recording,the media asset (e.g., 108) may be stored at the storage device 110,e.g., either locally or at a cloud server.

The media guidance application may then determine whether any of therecorded media assets include duplicate copies. For example, the mediaguidance application may examine the stored media assets within thestorage 110 when a new media asset is received, or may determine whethera media asset scheduled for recording (but prior to recording) may be aduplicate copy of an existing media asset already stored at the storage110. Specifically, the media guidance application may identify a firstmedia asset in a database of media assets previously stored on a firststorage device. For example, the media guidance application may recordand/or identify a newly recorded movie “Terminator” 108 from the ABCfamily channel at the storage device 110.

To determine whether the recorded movie “Terminator” already exists inthe storage device 110, the media guidance application may utilize theattributes of the movie 108. Specifically, the media guidanceapplication may determine a first set of attributes corresponding to thefirst media asset, e.g., movie “Terminator” from the ABC family channel.For example, in some embodiments, the media guidance application mayretrieve metadata corresponding to the first media asset (e.g., therecorded movie “Terminator” from the ABC Family channel), and a list ofpre-defined attribute types, such as but not limited to an English titlecorresponding to the first media asset, a title in a foreign languagecorresponding to the first media asset an index corresponding to themedia asset, a description of the media asset, an actor namecorresponding to the media asset, a director name corresponding to themedia asset, a display resolution parameter corresponding to the mediaasset, a media asset length, a user rating, a set of media asset frames,a media asset digital signature, and a media asset rating correspondingto the media asset, and/or the like. For each pre-defined attribute typefrom the list of pre-defined attribute types, the media guidanceapplication may parse the metadata to extract data corresponding to thepre-defined attribute type. For example, the media guidance applicationmay generate a set of attributes corresponding to the movie “Terminator”108 recorded from the ABC Family channel in an example eXtensible MarkupLanguage (XML) file:

<media_asset>

<id> 3fst82342 </id>

<source> “ABC family” </source>

<record_time> 10:23 </record_time>

<title> “Terminator” </title>

<description> “terminator . . . ” </description>

<actor> “Arnold Schwarzenegger” </actor>

<director> “James Cameron” </director>

<screen_size> 1024×768 </screen_size>

<definition> standard </definition>

<rating> R </rating>

. . .

</media_asset>

The media guidance application may then find whether any previouslystored media asset matches the attributes for the first media asset.Specifically, the media guidance application may search for a secondmedia asset that has a matching attribute with one or more of the firstset of attributes, e.g., sending a query based on one or more of theattributes to the storage device 110 where the movie “Terminator” 111and the movie “Terminator II” 112 are stored. In response to thetransmitted query based on the one or more attributes from the first setof attributes, the media guidance application may detect a second mediaasset that has matching attributes with the one or more attributes and asecond set of attributes corresponding to the second media asset. Forexample, the media guidance application may identify that both the movie“Terminator” 111 and the movie “Terminator II” 112 have a few matchingattributes with the movie “Terminator” 108, e.g., the same title, thesame director name, the same actor name, and/or the like.

To determine whether any of the media assets 111 and 112 corresponds tothe same media content with the media asset 108, the media guidanceapplication may quantitatively determine how much the media assets sharein common. Specifically, the media guidance application may compare thefirst set of attributes corresponding to the first media asset with thesecond set of attributes corresponding to the second media asset togenerate a similarity metric between the first media asset and thesecond media asset. For example, in some embodiments, for each attributefrom the first set of attributes (e.g., a media title of “Terminator,” aproduction year of “1984,” and a director name of “James Cameron,”etc.), the media guidance application may form a query on the second setof attributes (e.g., attributes corresponding to the movie “Terminator”111 recorded from the HBO channel) based on the respective attribute.The media guidance application may determine, for each attribute,whether a respective matching attribute that overlaps with therespective attribute for more than a pre-defined threshold is identifiedwithin the second set of attributes. For example, the attribute of mediaasset title “Terminator” for the movie 108 fully overlaps with the mediaasset title “Terminator” for the movie 111. For another example, themedia asset length of “127 minutes” for the movie 108 is within a closerange with the media asset length of “117 minutes” for the movie 111,and may be considered as overlapping more than a pre-defined threshold(e.g., 80%, 75%, etc.). In response to determining that the respectivematching attribute that overlaps with the respective attribute for morethan the pre-defined threshold is identified within the second set ofattributes, the media guidance application may compute a respectiveoverlap percentage that the respective attributes from the first set ofattributes overlap with the respective matching attributes from thesecond set of attributes. For example, the media asset 108 and the mediaasset 111 have a 100% overlap in media asset title (both are“Terminator”), and have a 92% overlap in media asset length, and/or thelike.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compareattributes of different data formats. For example, the same attributetype, e.g., media asset episode index, may be represented in differentdata formats in the first set and the second set of attributes, e.g.,“S03-E05” (season three episode five), “E25” (the 25^(th) episode, whichmay be the same as the fifth episode in season three). Specifically, themedia guidance application may retrieve a first attribute having a firstdata format from the first set of attributes and a second attributehaving a second data format from the second set of attributes. The mediaguidance application may translate, via a lookup table specifyingvariations of data formats corresponding to each attribute type, thefirst attribute having the first data format to the second data format,and then compare the translated first attribute with the secondattribute. For example, the media guidance application may retrieve theattribute type of media asset episode index for the first media asset as“S03-E05” (e.g., season-number-episode-number) and may then retrieveother data formats (e.g., episode number out of all episodes acrossseasons) corresponding to the attribute type for media asset episodeindex. The media guidance application may then form a query to a datasource (e.g., see 718 in FIG. 7) to retrieve information about theepisode index based on the media asset title, and determine that theepisode index in the form of “E25” (the 25th episode of all episodes) isthe same as “S03-E05.”

After the media guidance application has computed an overlap percentagebetween a pair of overlapping attributes from the first set ofattributes and the second set of attributes, the media guidanceapplication may determine the similarity metric between the first mediaasset and the second media asset. Specifically, the media guidanceapplication may compute a weighted sum over all overlap percentagesbetween the retrieved attributes and their respective matchingattributes. Each overlap percentage is weighted by a pre-defined weightcorresponding to a type of the respective attribute. For example, themedia asset title, the media asset season index, the media asset episodeindex, and/or the like may be assigned a relatively high weight (e.g.,0.8, 0.9, etc.), as media assets having a non-overlapping title, seasonindex or episode index are unlikely to correspond to the same mediacontent. For another example, the media asset description may beassigned a relatively lower weight as media assets obtained fromdifferent media sources (e.g., channels) may be associated withdescriptions written by different editors.

For example, the similarity metric between the media asset 108 and themedia asset 111 may be generated based on the following examplecomparison:

TABLE 1 Example Attribute Comparison Attribute Media asset Media AssetOverlap Type 108 111 Rate Weight title Terminator Terminator 100% 0.7Director James Cameron James Cameron 100% 0.7 name Actor NameSchwarzenegger Schwarzenegger 100% 0.7 Description — —  65% 0.45 Length117 minutes 127 minutes  90% 0.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .The media guidance application may determine whether the first mediaasset (e.g., media asset 108) and the second media asset (e.g., mediaasset 1111) correspond to the same media content based on the similaritymetric. For example, the media guidance application may compare whetherthe similarity metric is greater than a pre-defined similarity threshold(e.g., 0.45, 0.55, etc.).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may prioritizecertain attributes or characterize certain matching attribute matchingscenarios to determine whether the first media asset and the secondmedia asset correspond to the same media content. Specifically, themedia guidance application may retrieve and apply comparison logicrules, which specify a matching scenario where an attribute match for afirst type of attribute and an attribute mismatch for a second type ofattribute are identified. For example, the media asset 111 and the mediaasset 112 may have a relatively high similarity metric, because the twomedia assets have the same title “Terminator,” the same actor name, thesame director name, and very similar description. However, the mediaasset 111 and the media asset 112 have a different production year. Inthis scenario, even if the two media assets may have a relatively highsimilarity metric, a comparison logic rule specifies that any two mediaassets that have different production years do not correspond to thesame media content. In another example, a comparison logic rule mayspecify that any two media assets that have different season or episodeindices do not correspond to the same media content. Accordingly, themedia guidance application may determine whether attributes of the firsttype and of second type from the first set of attributes and counterpartattributes of the first type and of second type from the second set ofattributes satisfy the matching scenario specified in the comparisonlogic rule, e.g., different season or episode indices, differentproduction years, etc.

In response to determining that the attributes of the first type and ofsecond type from the first set of attributes and the counterpartattributes of the first type and of second type from the second set ofattributes satisfy the matching scenario specified in the comparisonlogic rule, the media guidance application may apply a comparison resultspecified in the comparison logic rule that indicates whether the firstmedia asset and the second media asset correspond to the same mediacontent. For example, the movie “Terminator II” 112 and the movie“Terminator” 111 are determined to not be the same movie. In thisexample, the movie 111 and the movie 112 violate a comparison logic ruleas having different production years. Thus, even if the two movies 111and 112 may have a relatively high similarity metric as sharing similartitles, similar description, the same cast member, the same directorname, the same production company, and/or the like, the two movies 111and 112 are not detected as duplicate copies.

It is noted that embodiments discussed in relation to FIG. 1 may beapplied to detecting duplicate copies of the same media content amongpreviously stored media assets at a local storage device or at a cloudserver, and then determining which previously stored duplicate copy ofthe same media content is to be deleted or transferred to a differentstorage device. Alternatively, the embodiments of detecting duplicatecopies may be applied to scenarios before a new media asset is actuallystored—the media guidance application may receive a configured recordingschedule that includes information (e.g., a set of attributes) of themedia asset to be recorded, and may then determine whether the mediaasset to be recorded is a duplicate copy of an existing media asset thathas previously been stored. If the media asset that is scheduled to berecorded is determined to be a duplicate copy of an existing media assetthat has previously been stored, the media guidance application maydetermine which copy is to be kept, as further described in relation toFIG. 2. The media asset scheduled to be recorded may be removed from therecording schedule, or the media asset that is previously stored is tobe deleted from the storage device. The embodiments of detectingduplicate copies may also be applied to scenarios when the first mediaasset and the second media asset are both scheduled to be recorded butbefore any of the two media assets is actually stored on the local orcloud storage device yet. For example, in response to determining thatboth the first media asset and the second media asset are scheduled tobe recorded, the media guidance application may retrieve attributescorresponding to the two media assets, and apply similar embodimentsdescribed in FIG. 1 to determine whether the two media assets correspondto duplicate copies of the same media content. If the two media assetsthat are scheduled to be recorded are determined to be duplicate copies,the media guidance application may determine which media asset is to bekept (e.g., to be recorded as scheduled, while the other media asset isremoted from the recording schedule). The determination of which mediaasset is to be kept is further described in relation to FIG. 2.

FIG. 2 depicts an illustrative diagram 200 for determining and sendingone of the duplicate copies of the same media content for storage at adifferent user device, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. Diagram 200 shows a local storage 110 that stores the movie“Terminator” 108 which is a standard-definition version and recordedfrom the ABC family channel and the movie “Terminator” 111 which is ahigh-definition version and recorded from the HBO channel.

After determining that two recorded media assets (e.g., the movie“Terminator” 108 recorded from the ABC family channel and the movie“Terminator” 111 recorded from the HBO channel) correspond to the samemedia content (e.g., as described in relation to FIG. 1), the mediaguidance application may determine whether to perform an action againstone of the duplicate copies, e.g., to delete one of the duplicatecopies, to offload one of the duplicate copies for storage at adifferent storage device, etc. Specifically, the media guidanceapplication may select an action to perform relative to one of the firstmedia asset and the second media asset based at least in part on thefirst set of attributes and the second set of attributes.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine whichof the duplicate copies to delete or offload from the local storagedevice 110 based on user preference, e.g., parental control settings,etc. Specifically, the media guidance application may retrieve a set ofmedia asset configuration rules from a user profile, which indicate apreference characteristic of a media asset or a restrictioncharacteristic of a media asset, e.g., the user device 114 may besubjected to parental control rules, or be restricted to store mediaassets that are larger than a pre-defined size, etc. The media guidanceapplication may then compare the first set of attributes with the set ofmedia asset configuration rules to generate a first compliance scoreindicative of a first level that the first media asset is compliant withthe set of media asset configuration rules. For example, the compliancescore may be computed as a percentage of the number of media assetconfiguration rules that attributes of the first media asset complywith, relative to the total number of media asset configuration rules.Similarly, the media guidance application may compare the second set ofattributes with the set of media asset configuration rules to generate asecond compliance score indicative of a second level that the secondmedia asset is compliant with the set of media asset configurationrules. In response to determining that the first compliance score islower than the second compliance score, the media guidance applicationmay select the first media asset for deletion from the local storagedevice. Or alternatively, the media guidance application may determinewhether the first media asset violates a configuration rule, and thencause the first media asset to be transferred from the first storagedevice to the second storage device. For example, the media assetconfiguration rules may include a restriction rule that any uneditedversion of rated R movies is refrained from being played at a userdevice owned by a minor in the household, and a preference rule that ahigh-definition version is preferred for playback at the user equipment106, and/or the like. Thus, in this example, the movie “Terminator” 111,which is an unedited high-definition copy, is compliant with both rules,and is selected to be kept at the local storage device 110. The movie“Terminator” 108, which is an edited family-friendly copy, is thenchosen to be deleted or offload to a user device owned by the minor. Inan embodiment, in response to determining that the first compliancescore is higher than the second compliance score, the media guidanceapplication may select the second media asset for deletion from thelocal storage device after the second media asset is previously storedat the local storage device. Alternatively, if the second media asset isscheduled for recording but not stored on the local storage device yet,the media guidance application may remove the second media asset from arecoding schedule before the second media asset is stored at the localstorage device.

Before performing any action relative to a duplicate copy of a mediaasset, the media guidance application may determine how confident it isto carry out the action, e.g., to remove the duplicate copy from thelocal storage device without user intervention. Specifically, the mediaguidance application may determine a confidence level relating toautomatically performing the selected action relative to the one of thefirst media asset and the second media asset by combining the similaritymetric (e.g., as described in relation to FIG. 1) and a success metric.The success metric represents a past success rate of incidents when nouser correction was received to revert automatic performance of theaction. For example, the media guidance application may retrieve arecord of previously performed actions and respective media assets thatthe actions have been previously performed upon, e.g., past actions thatdelete or transfer a duplicate copy to a different device. The mediaguidance application may search the record of previously performedactions and media assets that the actions have been previously performedupon based on one or more attributes corresponding to the one of thefirst media asset and the second media asset. For example, if the movie“Terminator” recorded from the ABC family channel is determined to bethe media asset to delete or offload to a different device, the mediaguidance application may retrieve a record of past occurrences wheremedia assets from the ABC family channel are deleted. The media guidanceapplication may then calculate the success metric as a percentage ofsuccessful occurrences among the subset of previously performed actions.In each successful occurrence, no user correction to revert therespective action was requested after the respective action wasautomatically performed. For example, for each media asset recorded fromthe ABC family channel and then automatically deleted, if a userrequests the media asset after the media asset is automatically deleted,the deletion is considered unsuccessful. If no such request is receivedafter the media asset is automatically deleted, the deletion isconsidered successful. The media guidance application may then determinethe confidence level as a weighted sum of the similarity metric and thesuccess metric using pre-defined weights.

In response to determining that the confidence level is greater than apre-defined confidence threshold, the media guidance application mayautomatically perform the determined action relative to the one of thefirst media asset and the second media asset, e.g., to delete or offloadthe duplicate copy to a different device. In some embodiments, the mediaguidance application may choose a duplicate copy to delete based on auser preference. Specifically, the media guidance application maydetermine a first format (e.g., standard definition, screen size adaptedfor a mobile screen, etc.) associated with the first media asset (e.g.,movie “Terminator” 108) and a second format (e.g., high definition,original screen size for display at a large screen, etc.) associatedwith the second media asset (e.g., movie “Terminator” 111). The mediaguidance application may determine that the user has a preference forhigh definition movies, or that the first media asset with the highdefinition has a better video content quality compared to the secondmedia asset with a standard definition, and may then automatically set adeletion priority associated with the movie “Terminator” 108 that has astandard definition. Thus, the movie “Terminator” 108 will be deletedbefore the movie “Terminator” 111.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may then determinewhether the user profile is associated with a different user device thatcan be used to offload one of the duplicate copies, e.g., from thestorage device 110 to user device 114. Specifically, in response todetermining that the first media asset and the second media assetcorrespond to the same media content, the media guidance application mayretrieve information relating to one or more user devices correspondingto a user profile. For example, the information relating to each userdevice that has been registered with the user profile may include, butnot limited to a hardware identifier, a user identifier, a type of theuser device, make and model of the user device, a display dimension, adisplay type, a memory volume, ownership information, and a networkconnection, and/or the like. Example device information retrieved fromthe user profile in an XML format may take a form similar to thefollowing:

<user_device>

<device_1>

-   -   <id> JS009 </id>    -   <hardware_id> &&DFF&& </hardware_id>    -   <model> tablet </model>    -   <make> Apple iPad Mini </make>    -   <user_info>        -   <user_type> personal </user_type>        -   <account> shared </account>        -   <parental_control> on </parental_control>        -   . . .    -   </user_info>    -   <display>        -   <width> 800 </width>        -   <length> 1200 </length>        -   <type> touch screen </type>    -   </display>    -   <memory>        -   <total> 64 GB </total>        -   <available> 34 GB </available>    -   </memory>    -   <network>        -   <network_1> wireless 802.11 </network_1>        -   <Bluetooth> on </Bluetooth>        -   . . .    -   </network>    -   . . .

</device_1>

<device_2>

-   -   . . .

</device_2>

</user_device>

The media guidance application may then compare relevant entries of thedevice information with attributes of the media assets that have beenidentified as duplicate copies. Specifically, the media guidanceapplication may determine whether any of the first media asset and thesecond media asset has one or more attributes that correspond tocharacteristics of any of the first storage device and the secondstorage device.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine which,if any, of the duplicate copies has attributes that are consistent withthe characteristics of the user device. Specifically, the media guidanceapplication may determine, based on a type of the first storage deviceor the second storage device, the characteristics of the first device orthe second storage device, such as but not limited to a displaydimension, a display type, a memory volume, ownership information and anetwork connection, and/or the like. The media guidance application maythen determine whether one or more attributes from the first set ofattributes correspond to the characteristics based on one or morepre-defined association relationships. For example, the pre-definedassociation relationships may include criteria that correlate devicecharacteristics with media asset attributes, e.g., an attribute of“standard definition” is correlated with a characteristic of the memoryspace of a mobile device, an attribute of “screen adapted for mobiledevice displays” is correlated with a characteristic of a mobile device,an attribute of “unedited original version” or “rated R” is correlatedwith a characteristic of “parental control settings on,” and/or thelike. For example, when the movie “Terminator” 108 recorded from the ABCFamily channel, has an attribute of “standard definition,” and the movie“Terminator” 111 recorded from the HBO channel has an attribute of “highdefinition,” the media guidance application may determine that movie 111with the high definition is to be stored at the storage device 110 to beplayed at the user equipment 106, while the standard definition movie108 may be delivered and stored on a tablet computer.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether to offload one of the duplicate copies to another user devicebased on the past viewing pattern of the user. Specifically, the mediaguidance application may determine a viewing pattern involving the firstdevice from viewing history from the user profile. For example, theviewing pattern may indicate that media assets under certain categories(e.g., teen, comedian, shows recorded from family friendly channels suchas “Disney” or “ABC Family,” etc.) are often played at a tabletcomputer, e.g., by a minor in the household. For another example, theviewing pattern may indicate that a high-definition copy of a mediaasset is usually kept at the storage device 110 and played at the userequipment 106.

In some embodiment, the media guidance application may identifyparameters from the viewing pattern such as but not limited to a mediaasset type, a media quality, a media asset title, a media asset genre, amedia asset source, a media asset length, and/or the like, and thecorresponding user device. The media guidance application may thendetermine whether one or more attributes from the first set ofattributes correspond to the parameters from the viewing pattern. Forexample, if the viewing pattern indicates that media assets recordedfrom the ABC family channel are usually played on a table computer(e.g., user device 114), the media guidance application may determinethat the media asset 108 is intended for storage at the user device 114.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether a duplicate copy violates any configuration rules of a localstorage device, e.g., parental control settings, etc. Specifically, themedia guidance application may retrieve, from a user profile, a set ofmedia asset configuration rules including at least one or morerestrictions on the first storage device to store a media asset, e.g.,the user device 114 may be subjected to parental control rules, or berestricted to store media assets that are larger than a pre-definedsize, etc. The media guidance application may then determine whetherstoring the first media asset on the first storage device exceeds anyrule from the set of media asset configuration rules. In response todetermining that storing the first media asset on the first storagedevice exceeds a rule from the set of media asset configuration rules,the media guidance application may cause the first media asset to betransferred from the first storage device to the second storage device.For example, when the movie “Terminator” 108 violates a parental controlrule associated with the local storage device 110, the movie“Terminator” 108 is transmitted to a private user device 114 that isowned by an adult in the household.

In response to determining a match between one or more attributes fromthe first set of attributes and the characteristics of the first device,or based on a viewing pattern, the media guidance application mayassociate a duplicate copy of a media asset with a specific device.Specifically, the media guidance application may append the firstindication of the first device to metadata corresponding to the firstmedia asset. For example, the media guidance application may add a datafield of user_device to the profile of the media asset, indicating thatthe respective media asset is assigned to a particular user device.

The media guidance application may then store or transmit the duplicatecopies of the media asset at the local storage device, or to a differentstorage device. For example, the media guidance application may storethe high definition copy 111 of the movie “Terminator” at the storagedevice 110, and transmit the standard-definition copy 108 of the movie“Terminator” to another device 114 such as a mobile device, a tabletcomputer, and/or the like. For another example, the media guidanceapplication may transmit the edited version 108 of the movie“Terminator” to the user device 114 that is intended for a minor in thehousehold, while keeping the original unedited version of the rated Rmovie “Terminator” at the storage device 110. As shown in FIG. 2, afterthe movie “Terminator” 108 is transferred to the user device 114, themedia guidance application may no longer display an indication of“Terminator” 108, or display the indication of “Terminator” 108 with avisual effect, e.g., shaded, grayed-out, etc.

In some embodiments, as shown in FIG. 2, the removed media asset 108 maybe displayed in a shaded or grayed-out pattern, but may still beselectable by a user to request playback. For example, if the mediaasset 108 has been offloaded to user device 114, but the user requeststhe media asset 108 to be displayed at user equipment 106, the mediaasset 108 may be restored at the storage device 110 for playback. Foranother example, if the media asset 108 has been determined to bedeleted, the deletion may be implemented through a recycle bin so thatif the user requests the media asset 108 to be displayed at userequipment 106, the media asset 108 may be restored from the recycle bin.If the media asset 108 has been stored at the recycle bin for a periodof time (e.g., one week, two weeks, etc.) without any user request torestore, the media asset 108 may be permanently removed from the recyclebin.

It is noted that embodiments described in FIGS. 1-2 describe detectingwhether two media assets are duplicate copies of the same media content,and determining which one of the two media assets is to be deleted ortransferred to another storage device, for illustrative purpose. Similarembodiments can be applied to a plurality of media assets, not limitedto two media assets, e.g., three, four, five, and/or the like. Forexample, the media guidance application may compare a plurality of setsof attributes corresponding to the plurality of media assets, in asimilar manner as described in the scenario of two media assets, todetermine whether the plurality of media assets are duplicate copies.

FIG. 3 depicts an illustrative diagram 300 for generating, for display,indications of the duplicate copies at the user equipment and theavailability of each duplicate copy, in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure. Diagram 300 shows at the user equipment 106, twoduplicate copies of “Terminator” movie 108 and “Terminator” movie 111are displayed simultaneously in response to a search query based on thekeyword “Terminator” 121.

Specifically, after storing both the first media asset (e.g.,“Terminator” 111) with a first indication of the first storage device(e.g., local storage device 110) and the second media asset (e.g.,“Terminator” 108) with a second indication of the second storage device(e.g., user device 114), the media guidance application may generate,for simultaneous display, the first media asset with the firstindication of the first device and the second media asset with thesecond indication of the second storage device. For example, when aquery based on the keyword “Terminator” is received in the database ofpreviously stored media assets, two visual indications, e.g., icons of“Terminator” movie 108 and “Terminator” movie 111, are displayedsimultaneously. The first visual indication is selectable to playbackthe first media asset at the first device, and the second visualindication is selectable to playback the second media asset at thesecond device. For example, when the high-definition copy of“Terminator” 108 is stored at the local storage device 110 correspondingto the set-top box, a “play” button 131 is displayed to playback on theuser equipment 106. When the standard-definition copy of “Terminator”108 is no longer stored at the local storage device 110, e.g., eitherdeleted or transferred to the user device 114, an indication of“available at” 132 is displayed for selection to direct a user to watch“Terminator” 108 at user device 114.

In some embodiments, the duplicate copies corresponding to differentversions of the same media program may be kept in storage for userselection. Specifically, the media guidance application may store boththe first media asset with a first indication of the first device andthe second media asset with a second indication of the second device.For example, both the movie “Terminator” 108 recorded from the ABCfamily channel and the movie “Terminator” 111 recorded from the HBOchannel can be stored at the storage device 110.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may automaticallyadjust a user inquiry for a media asset based on the available copies,e.g., by providing the media asset of a different version than the onespecified in the user inquiry. Specifically, the media guidanceapplication may receive a user request to playback the second mediaasset at user equipment corresponding to the first storage device, andthe user request includes identifying information relating to the secondmedia asset. For example, the user request may be received, e.g., via avoice command, at the user equipment 106, asking for “the Terminatormovie I recorded yesterday.” The media guidance application may performa query on previously stored media assets based on the identifyinginformation (e.g., title “Terminator” and recording time “yesterday”) toidentify the media asset 108 that is recorded from “ABC family.” Themedia guidance application may also determine that a duplicate copy ofthe movie “Terminator” 111 that has a high definition for playback atthe user equipment 106 is available.

The media guidance application may determine whether to recommend adifferent copy of the same media content to the user other than the copythat the user requested. Specifically, the media guidance applicationmay determine a recommendation confidence level to playback the firstmedia asset instead of the second media asset at the user equipment inresponse to the user request. For example, the media guidanceapplication may retrieve the similarity metric between the first mediaasset (e.g., the movie “Terminator” 108) and the second media asset(e.g., the movie “Terminator” 111), and incorporate the similaritymetric as part of the recommendation level. The media guidanceapplication may also determine a difference score, which indicateswhether and how much the identifying information of the user requestedmedia asset differs from the first media asset intended forrecommendation. For example, the media guidance application may comparethe identifying information in the user request, e.g., a title of“Terminator,” a recording time of “yesterday,” corresponding to thesecond media asset, with the first set of attributes corresponding tothe first media asset (e.g., movie “Terminator” 111), e.g., a title of“Terminator,” a recording time of “two weeks ago.” Thus, in thisexample, the difference between the identifying informationcorresponding to the second media asset and attributes corresponding tothe first media asset is the recording time. The media guidanceapplication may use a pre-defined difference score associated with theattribute type “recording time.” When the difference between theidentifying information corresponding to the second media asset andattributes corresponding to the first media asset includes two or moreattribute types, a weighted sum of the difference score per eachattribute type is calculated. The media guidance application may thendetermine the recommendation confidence level by subtracting thedifference score from the similarity metric. Thus, when the similaritymetric is high, e.g., indicating the movie “Terminator” 108 and themovie “Terminator” 111 are substantially similar, the recommendationconfidence level is high. However, if the difference score is high,e.g., indicating the user request is substantially different from themedia asset intended for recommendation, the recommendation confidencelevel is relatively lower.

In response to determining that the recommendation confidence level isgreater than a pre-defined recommendation confidence threshold, themedia guidance application may play back the first media asset at theuser equipment. For example, in response to the user request to playbackthe “Terminator” movie 108 at the user equipment 106, the media guidanceapplication may playback the high-definition version 111 of “Terminator”at the user equipment 106 instead. In response to determining that therecommendation confidence level is less than a pre-definedrecommendation confidence threshold, the media guidance application maygenerate, for display, a visual element indicative of a recommendationof the first media asset to be played at the user equipment. Forexample, when the user asks for a previously stored media asset recordedfrom a certain channel but the same media asset recorded from adifferent channel with higher definition is available, the mediaguidance application may recommend the copy with higher-definition tothe user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may inspect whetherthe recommendation of a media asset to a user other than the userrequested copy violates any configuration rules, e.g., parental controlsettings, etc. If a media asset intended for recommendation that isdifferent from the user requested media asset violates a media assetconfiguration rule, the media guidance application may refrain fromrecommending the media asset. In the above example, if the local storagedevice 111 is subject to parental control rules to playback uneditedversion of any rated R movies, the movie “Terminator” 111, despite thehigh-definition quality, will not be recommended for playback. Instead,the movie “Terminator” 108, which is a family friendly version recordedfrom “ABC family,” will be played.

FIGS. 4-5 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 4-5 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform, e.g.,user equipment 106 in FIG. 1. While the displays of FIGS. 4-5 areillustrated as full screen displays, they may also be fully or partiallyoverlaid over content being displayed. A user may indicate a desire toaccess content information by selecting a selectable option provided ina display screen (e.g., a menu option, a listings option, an icon, ahyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicated button (e.g., a GUIDE button)on a remote control or other user input interface or device. In responseto the user's indication, the media guidance application may provide adisplay screen with media guidance data organized in one of severalways, such as by time and channel in a grid, by time, by channel, bysource, by content type, by category (e.g., movies, sports, news,children, or other categories of programming), or other predefined,user-defined, or other organization criteria.

FIG. 4 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 400arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 400 may include grid 402 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 404, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 406, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 402 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 408, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 410. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 410 may be provided inprogram information region 412. Region 412 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 402 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 414, recorded content listing 416, andInternet content listing 418. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 400 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings414, 416, and 418 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 402 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 402. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 420. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 420.)

Display 400 may also include video region 422, and options region 426.Video region 422 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 422 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 402. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 4003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 426 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 426 may be part of display 400 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 426 may concern features related to program listings in grid 402or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 4D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.Tivo.com, from other media guidance applicationsthe user accesses, from other interactive applications the useraccesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.), and/orobtain information about the user from other sources that the mediaguidance application may access. As a result, a user can be providedwith a unified guidance application experience across the user'sdifferent user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 7. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.3005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 3005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 3007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 3002/0174430, filed Feb. 31, 3002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 5. Video mosaic display 500 includes selectable options 502 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 500, television listings option 504 isselected, thus providing listings 506, 508, 510, and 512 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 500 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 508 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 514 and text portion 516.Media portion 514 and/or text portion 516 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 514 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 500 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 506 islarger than listings 508, 510, and 512), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 6 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 600. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 7.User equipment device 500 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 602. I/O path 602 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 604, which includesprocessing circuitry 606 and storage 608. Control circuitry 604 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 602. I/O path 602 may connect control circuitry 604 (andspecifically processing circuitry 506) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 6 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 604 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 606. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 608). Specifically, control circuitry 604 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 604 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 604 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 604 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 6). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 608 thatis part of control circuitry 604. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 608 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 7, may be used to supplementstorage 708 or instead of storage 608.

Control circuitry 604 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 604 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 500. Circuitry 504 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 608 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 500, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 508.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 604 using user inputinterface 610. User input interface 610 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 612 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 600. For example, display 612 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 610may be integrated with or combined with display 612. Display 612 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 612 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 612 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 612.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry604. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 604.Speakers 614 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 600 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 612 may be played throughspeakers 614. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers614.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 600. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage608), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 604 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 608 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 604 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 610. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 610 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 600 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 600. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 604 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 604) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 600. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 600.Equipment device 600 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 610 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 600 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 610.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 600 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 604). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 604 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 604. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 604. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 700 of FIG. 7 can be implemented in system 700 ofFIG. 7 as user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704,wireless user communications device 706, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 5 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, or awireless user communications device 706. For example, user televisionequipment 702 may, like some user computer equipment 704, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 704 may, like some television equipment 702, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 704, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 706.

In system 700, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 7 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 702, user computer equipment 704, wireless user communicationsdevice 706) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.Tivo.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 714.Namely, user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, andwireless user communications device 706 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 714 via communications paths 708, 710, and 712, respectively.Communications network 714 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 708, 710, and 712 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 712 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 7 it is awireless path and paths 708 and 710 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 708, 710, and 712, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 714.

System 700 includes content source 716 and media guidance data source718 coupled to communications network 714 via communication paths 720and 722, respectively. Paths 720 and 722 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 708, 710,and 712. Communications with the content source 716 and media guidancedata source 718 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 716 and media guidance data source 718, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 716 and media guidance data source 718 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 716 and 718 withuser equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 are shown as throughcommunications network 714, in some embodiments, sources 716 and 718 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 708, 710, and 712.

Content source 716 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 716 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 716 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 716 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 718 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 718may be provided to users” equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 718 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 718 mayprovide user equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 508, and executedby control circuitry 704 of a user equipment device 500. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 704 of user equipment device 500and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 718) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 718), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 718 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices702, 704, and 706 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 700 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 7.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 714.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 716 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 702 and user computer equipment 704may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 706 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 714. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 716 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 718. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, and wirelessuser communications device 706. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 704 or wireless usercommunications device 706 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 704. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 714. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 7.

FIG. 8 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for detectingduplicate copies of a media asset and saving different duplicate copiesat different user devices, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. Process 800 may be executed by control circuitry 604 (e.g.,in a manner instructed to control circuitry 604 by the media guidanceapplication). Control circuitry 604 may be part of user equipment (e.g.,user equipment 106, user television equipment 702, user computerequipment 704, and/or wireless communications device 706), or of aremote server separated from the user equipment by way of communicationsnetwork 714.

Process 800 begins at 802, where control circuitry 604 identifies afirst media asset in a database of media assets previously stored on afirst storage device, e.g., by reading the first media asset out oflocal storage 608 in FIG. 6, or data source 716 in FIG. 7. At 804,control circuitry 604 determines a first set of attributes correspondingto the first media asset. For example, control circuitry 604 parses themetadata corresponding to the first media asset and extracts data fieldssuch as but not limited to a title in a foreign language correspondingto the first media asset, an index corresponding to the media asset, adescription of the media asset, an actor name corresponding to the mediaasset, a director name corresponding to the media asset, a displayresolution parameter corresponding to the media asset, a media assetlength, a user rating, and a media asset rating corresponding to themedia asset, and/or the like. At 806, control circuitry 604 searches fora second media asset that has a matching attribute with one or more ofthe first set of attributes. For example, control circuitry 604transmits a query based on one of the attributes on the database ofpreviously stored media assets. At 808, control circuitry 604 comparesthe first set of attributes corresponding to the first media asset withthe second set of attributes corresponding to the second media asset togenerate a similarity metric between the first media asset and thesecond media asset, and then at 810, control circuitry 604 determineswhether the first media asset and the second media asset correspond tothe same media content based on the similarity metric. The similaritymetric calculation and determination at 808 and 810 are furtherdescribed in relation to process 1000 in FIG. 10.

At 812, process 800 ends when the first media asset and the second mediaasset do not correspond to a same media content based on the similaritymetric. At 8012, process 800 proceeds to 814 when the first media assetand the second media asset correspond to the same media content based onthe similarity metric. At 814, control circuitry 604 retrievesinformation (e.g., a type of the storage device, available memoryvolume, the display type corresponding to the storage device, etc.)relating to the first storage device and a second storage devicescorresponding to a user profile, e.g., from local storage 608 in FIG. 6,or data source 718 in FIG. 7. For example, the first storage devicecorresponds to the local storage at user equipment, and the secondstorage device corresponds to the storage unit at a user mobile device.

At 816, control circuitry 604 determines whether any of the first mediaasset and the second media asset has one or more attributes (e.g., adisplay format, etc.) that correspond to characteristics (e.g., adisplay type, etc.) of any of the first storage device and the secondstorage device. At 818, process 800 proceeds to 1214 in FIG. 12 whennone of the first media asset and the second media asset has attributesthat correspond to characteristics of any of the first storage deviceand the second storage device. For example, as further described at 1214in FIG. 12, control circuitry 604 determines whether to delete one ofthe first media asset and the second media asset. At 818, process 800proceeds to 820 when the first media asset has attributes thatcorrespond to characteristics of the first storage device. At 802,control circuitry 604 stores the first media asset at the first storagedevice, e.g., when the first media asset is a high-definition versionthat has a large media file size, and the first storage device is apersonal video recorder. At 822, control circuitry 604 transfers thesecond media asset from the first storage device to a second storagedevice (e.g., via communications network 714 in FIG. 7), e.g., when thesecond media asset is an adapted version intended to be played at amobile device, and the second storage device is associated with a usermobile device.

FIG. 9 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for recommending acopy of a media asset for playback at a user device after detectingdifferent duplicate copies of the media asset are available at 812 inFIG. 8, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Process900 may be executed by control circuitry 604 (e.g., in a mannerinstructed to control circuitry 604 by the media guidance application).Control circuitry 604 may be part of user equipment (e.g., userequipment 106, user television equipment 702, user computer equipment704, and/or wireless communications device 706), or of a remote serverseparated from the user equipment by way of communications network 714.

Process 900 begins at 902, where control circuitry 604 stores both thefirst media asset with a first indication of the first storage deviceand the second media asset with a second indication of the secondstorage device. For example, control circuitry 604 stores differentversions of duplicate copies of the media asset at storage 608 in FIG. 6or data source 716 in FIG. 7, e.g., a high-definition version forplayback at a large screen and an adapted version for playback at amobile screen, etc. At 904, control circuitry 604 receives a userrequest to playback the second media asset at user equipmentcorresponding to the first storage device, e.g., via I/O path 602 inFIG. 6. At 906, control circuitry 604 retrieves, e.g., from storage 608in FIG. 6 or data source 718 in FIG. 7, the similarity metric betweenthe first media asset and the second media asset, which is obtained at808 in FIG. 8 and further described in FIG. 10. At 908, controlcircuitry 604 determines a difference score by comparing the identifyinginformation corresponding to the second media asset with the first setof attributes corresponding to the first media asset. For example,control circuitry 604 parses the user request to obtain identifyinginformation relating to the second media asset (e.g., “Terminatorrecorded yesterday,” etc.) and determines how different the identifyinginformation is from attributes of the first media asset (e.g., the firstmedia asset is recorded a week ago, but the recording time is notconsidered a significant difference, so the difference score can beinsignificant), as described in relation to FIG. 2. At 910, controlcircuitry 604 determines a recommendation confidence level bysubtracting the difference score from the similarity metric. At 912,process 900 proceeds to 914 when the confidence level is greater than apre-defined confidence threshold, or proceeds to 916 when the confidencelevel is less than a pre-defined confidence threshold.

At 914, control circuitry 604 plays back the first media asset at theuser equipment, e.g., via the display 412 in FIG. 4, or any of 702, 704and 706 in FIG. 7. At 916, control circuitry 604 generates, for display,e.g., via the display 412 in FIG. 4, or any of 702, 704 and 706 in FIG.7, or a user interface of user device 114 in FIG. 1, a visual elementindicative of a recommendation of the first media asset to be played atthe user equipment

FIG. 10 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether two media assets correspond to the same media content (e.g., 810in FIG. 8), in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.Process 1000 may be executed by control circuitry 604 (e.g., in a mannerinstructed to control circuitry 604 by the media guidance application).Control circuitry 604 may be part of user equipment (e.g., userequipment 106, user television equipment 702, user computer equipment704, and/or wireless communications device 706), or of a remote serverseparated from the user equipment by way of communications network 714.

Process 1000 begins at 1002, where control circuitry 604 starts withretrieving each attribute from the first set of attributes, e.g., fromstorage 608 in FIG. 6, or data source 718 in FIG. 7. At 1004, controlcircuitry 604 determines whether an attribute from the first set ofattributes overlaps with a respective attribute from the second set ofattributes for more than a pre-defined threshold. For example, controlcircuitry 604 compares the data values of the same attribute type, e.g.,media asset title, and determines a percentage that the text titles ofthe two media assets overlap. At 1006, process 1000 proceeds to 1008when the respective attribute from the first set of attributes overlapswith a respective attribute from the second set of attributes for morethan the pre-defined threshold. Or at 1006, process 1000 proceeds to1010 when the respective attribute from the first set of attributes doesnot overlap with a respective attribute from the second set ofattributes for more than the pre-defined threshold.

At 1008, control circuitry 604 computes a respective overlap percentagethat the respective attributes from the first set of attributes overlapwith the respective matching attributes from the second set ofattributes. At 1010, control circuitry 604 moves to the next attribute(and repeats 1002-1008) until all attributes in the first set ofattributes are processed.

At 1012, control circuitry 604 determines the similarity metric bycomputing a weighted sum over all overlap percentages between theretrieved attributes and their respective matching attributes. Forexample, control circuitry 604 retrieves pre-determined weights for eachattribute types from storage 608 in FIG. 6, or data source 718 in FIG.7, e.g., a weight of 0.8 for “media asset title,” a weight of 0.3 for“media asset description,” and/or the like.

At 1014, control circuitry 604 retrieves, from a database at storage 608in FIG. 6, or data source 718 in FIG. 7, a comparison logic rulespecifying a matching scenario where an attribute match for a first typeof attribute and an attribute mismatch for a second type of attributeare identified. At 1016, control circuitry 604 determines whetherattributes of the first type and of second type from the first set ofattributes and counterpart attributes of the first type and of secondtype from the second set of attributes satisfy the matching scenariospecified in the comparison logic rule. For example, control circuitry604 verifies whether the first media asset and the second media assetmatches with a pre-defined scenario, e.g., when two media assets havethe same title, the same cast list, but different production year, etc.At 1018, process 1000 proceeds to 810 in FIG. 8 when the first mediaasset and the second media asset do not satisfy the matching scenariospecified in the comparison logic rule. Or process 1000 proceeds to 1020when the first media asset and the second media asset satisfy thematching scenario specified in the comparison logic rule.

At 1020, control circuitry 604 applies a comparison result specified inthe comparison logic rule that indicates whether the first media assetand the second media asset correspond to the same media content. Forexample, control circuitry 604 parses and reads the comparison resultfrom the comparison logic rule, e.g., “not same” in response to thematching scenario of “same title,” “same cast list,” and “differentproduction years.”

FIG. 11 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether any of the duplicate copies of media assets corresponds to oneof the storage devices from a user profile (e.g., see 816 in FIG. 8), inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Process 1000 may beexecuted by control circuitry 604 (e.g., in a manner instructed tocontrol circuitry 604 by the media guidance application). Controlcircuitry 604 may be part of user equipment (e.g., user equipment 106,user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, and/orwireless communications device 706), or of a remote server separatedfrom the user equipment by way of communications network 714.

Process 1100 begins at 1102, where control circuitry 604 determines,based on a type of the first storage device or the second storage device(e.g., personal video recorder, or mobile device, etc.), thecharacteristics of the first device or the second storage device, suchas but not limited to a display dimension, a display type, a memoryvolume, ownership information and a network connection. For example,control circuitry 604 identifies a hardware identifier from the firststorage device, e.g., a tablet computer, and then searches at a databaseof user devices for characteristics corresponding to the tabletcomputer. At 1104, control circuitry 604 determines whether one or moreattributes from the first set of attributes correspond to thecharacteristics based on one or more pre-defined associationrelationships. For example, when control circuitry 604 retrieves anattribute of media file size or definition of the media asset, controlcircuitry 604 in turn compares the media file size with the memoryvolume of the first storage device. A large media file size does notmatch with a limited memory space, e.g., at a mobile device. At 1106,process 1100 proceeds to 1110. if no attribute from the first set ofattributes correspond to the characteristics of any storage device. Orprocess 1100 proceeds to 1108 if one or more attributes from the firstset of attributes correspond to the characteristics of the first storagedevice.

At 1108, control circuitry 604 appends a first indication of the firststorage device to metadata corresponding to the first media asset. Forexample, control circuitry 604 writes a data entry including anidentifier of the first storage device to the metadata. At 1110, controlcircuitry 604 determines a viewing pattern involving the first storagedevice from viewing history from the user profile. For example, theviewing pattern includes a parameter such as a media asset type, a mediaquality, a media asset title, a media asset genre, a media asset source,a media asset length, and/or the like. At 1112, control circuitry 604determines whether one or more attributes from the first set ofattributes correspond to the parameter from the viewing pattern. At1114, process 1100 proceeds to 1214 in FIG. 12 where control circuitry604 determines whether to delete the first media asset if no attributefrom the first set of attributes corresponds to the parameter from theviewing pattern. Or, process 1100 proceeds to 1108 when attribute fromthe first set of attributes corresponds to the parameter from theviewing pattern.

FIG. 12 depicts an illustrative flowchart of additional embodimentsrelating to performing an action relative to a duplicate copy of a mediaasset, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Process1200 may be executed by control circuitry 604 (e.g., in a mannerinstructed to control circuitry 604 by the media guidance application).Control circuitry 604 may be part of user equipment (e.g., userequipment 106, user television equipment 702, user computer equipment704, and/or wireless communications device 706), or of a remote serverseparated from the user equipment by way of communications network 714.

Process 1200 begins at 1202, where control circuitry 604 identifies afirst media asset in a database of media assets stored on a localstorage device, e.g., similar to 802 in FIG. 8. At 1204, controlcircuitry 604 determines a first set of attributes corresponding to thefirst media asset, e.g., similar to 804 in FIG. 8. At 1206, controlcircuitry 604 searches for a second media asset that has a matchingattribute with one or more of the first set of attributes, e.g., similarto 806 in FIG. 8. At 1208, control circuitry 604 compares the first setof attributes corresponding to the first media asset with a second setof attributes corresponding to the second media asset to generate asimilarity metric between the first media asset and the second mediaasset, e.g., similar to 808 in FIG. 8. At 1210, control circuitry 604determines whether the first media asset and the second media assetcorrespond to the same media content based on the similarity metric,e.g., similar to 810 in FIG. 8.

At 1212, process 1200 process to 1214 when the first media asset and thesecond media asset correspond to the same media content based on thesimilarity metric. At 1214, control circuitry 604 selects an action toperform relative to one of the first media asset and the second mediaasset based at least in part on the first set of attributes and thesecond set of attributes. For example, control circuitry 604 determineswhether one of the first media asset and the second media asset is to betransferred to a different storage device, as described in FIG. 11. Orcontrol circuitry 604 determines whether to delete one of the firstmedia asset and the second media asset. At 1216, control circuitry 604retrieves a success metric that represents a past success rate ofincidents when no user correction was received to revert automaticperformance of the action, as further described in FIG. 14. At 1218,control circuitry 604 determines a confidence level relating toautomatically performing the selected action relative to the one of thefirst media asset and the second media asset by combining the similaritymetric and the success metric, as further described in FIG. 14. Forexample, the confidence level indicates whether control circuitry 604 isable to perform an action, e.g., to transfer a recorded media asset orto delete a recorded media asset without user intervention.

At 1220, process 1200 proceeds to 1222 when the confidence level isgreater than a pre-defined confidence threshold. At 1222, controlcircuitry 604 automatically performs the determined action relative tothe one of the first media asset and the second media asset.

FIG. 13 depicts an illustrative flowchart of additional embodimentsrelating to selecting an action to perform relative to one of theduplicate copies of the media asset (e.g., see 1214 in FIG. 12), inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Process 1300 may beexecuted by control circuitry 604 (e.g., in a manner instructed tocontrol circuitry 604 by the media guidance application). Controlcircuitry 604 may be part of user equipment (e.g., user equipment 106,user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, and/orwireless communications device 706), or of a remote server separatedfrom the user equipment by way of communications network 714.

Process 1300 begins at 1302, where control circuitry 604 retrieves a setof media asset configuration rules from a user profile stored at storage608 in FIG. 6, or data source 718 in FIG. 7. For example, the set ofmedia asset configuration rules indicate a preference characteristic(e.g., user preferences, etc.) of a media asset or a restrictioncharacteristic (e.g., parental control, etc.) of a media asset. At 1304,control circuitry 604 compares the first set of attributes with the setof media asset configuration rules to generate a first compliance scoreindicative of a first level that the first media asset is compliant withthe set of media asset configuration rules. For example, controlcircuitry 604 compares the attributes of the first media asset againsteach media asset configuration rule, and counts the number of mediaasset configuration rules that the media asset does not violate.Similarly, at 1306, control circuitry 604 compares the second set ofattributes with the set of media asset configuration rules to generate asecond compliance score indicative of a second level that the secondmedia asset is compliant with the set of media asset configurationrules. At 1308, if the first compliance score is less than the secondcompliance score, process 1300 proceeds to 1310, where control circuitry604 selects the first media asset for deletion from the local storagedevice. Or at 1308, if the first compliance score is greater than thesecond compliance score, process 1300 proceeds to 1312, where controlcircuitry 604 selects the second media asset for deletion from the localstorage device.

FIG. 14 depicts an illustrative flowchart of additional embodimentsrelating to determining a confidence level relating to automaticallyperforming an action relative to a duplicate copy of a media asset(e.g., see 1218 in FIG. 12), in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. Process 1400 may be executed by control circuitry 604 (e.g.,in a manner instructed to control circuitry 604 by the media guidanceapplication). Control circuitry 604 may be part of user equipment (e.g.,user equipment 106, user television equipment 702, user computerequipment 704, and/or wireless communications device 706), or of aremote server separated from the user equipment by way of communicationsnetwork 714.

Process 1400 begins at 1402, where control circuitry 604 retrieves thesimilarity metric, e.g., from storage 608 in FIG. 6 or data source 718in FIG. 7. At 1404, control circuitry 604 determines the success metriccorresponding to the selected action, and the success metric evaluates asuccess rate of performing the selected action without any user requestto revert the action. For example, at 1406, control circuitry 604retrieves, e.g., from storage 608 in FIG. 6 or data source 718 in FIG.7, a record of previously performed actions and respective media assetsthat the actions have been previously performed upon. At 1408, controlcircuitry 604 searches the record of previously performed actions andmedia assets that the actions have been previously performed upon basedon one or more attributes corresponding to the one of the first mediaasset and the second media asset. For example, control circuitry 604performs a query on the record of previously performed actions based onan action type of “deletion” and a media source of the ABC Familychannel. At 1410, control circuitry 604 obtains a subset of previouslyperformed actions and respective media assets that the actions have beenpreviously performed upon that have the one or more attributes, e.g.,the record of media assets recorded from the ABC family channel thathave been automatically deleted. At 1412, control circuitry 604calculates the success metric as a percentage of successful occurrencesamong the subset of previously performed actions. In each successfuloccurrence, no user correction to revert the respective action wasrequested after the respective action was automatically performed. Forexample, for each media asset recorded from the ABC family channel andthen automatically deleted, if a user requests the media asset after themedia asset is automatically deleted, the deletion is consideredunsuccessful. If no such request is received after the media asset isautomatically deleted, the deletion is considered successful. At 1414,control circuitry 604 determines the confidence level as a weighted sumof the similarity metric and the success metric using pre-definedweights.

FIG. 15 depicts an illustrative flowchart of additional embodimentsrelating to determining which one of the duplicate copies of the mediaassets is to automatically deleted, in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure. Process 1500 may be executed by control circuitry 604(e.g., in a manner instructed to control circuitry 604 by the mediaguidance application). Control circuitry 604 may be part of userequipment (e.g., user equipment 106, user television equipment 702, usercomputer equipment 704, and/or wireless communications device 706), orof a remote server separated from the user equipment by way ofcommunications network 714.

Process 1500 begins at 1502, where control circuitry 604 determines afirst format associated with the first media asset and a second formatassociated with the second media asset. For example, control circuitry604 parses the metadata corresponding to the media asset to obtain adisplay dimension or definition of the media asset. At 1504, controlcircuitry 604 determines that the user has a preference for the firstformat. For example, control circuitry 604 retrieves a user viewinghistory from a user profile at storage 608 in FIG. 6 or data source 718in FIG. 7, and identifies that the user constantly selects ahigh-definition copy over a standard-definition copy. AT 1506, controlcircuitry 604 automatically sets a deletion priority associated with thefirst media asset to be greater than a deletion priority associated withthe second media asset. For example, the deletion priority determines anorder in which media assets are deleted, such that the second mediaasset will be deleted before the first media asset.

It should be noted that processes 800-1500 or any step thereof could beperformed on, or provided by, any of the devices shown in, or describedwith respect to, FIGS. 1 and 5-6. For example, any of processes 800-1500may be executed by control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) as instructed bycontrol circuitry implemented on user equipment 106 (FIG. 1), 602, 604,606 (FIG. 6), and/or the like for generating and displaying a summaryview of a media asset. In addition, one or more steps of processes800-1500 may be incorporated into or combined with one or more steps ofany other process or embodiment.

It is contemplated that the actions or descriptions of each of FIGS.8-15 may be used with any other embodiment of this disclosure. Inaddition, the actions and descriptions described in relation to FIGS.8-15 may be done in alternative orders or in parallel to further thepurposes of this disclosure. For example, each of these steps may beperformed in any order or in parallel or substantially simultaneously toreduce lag or increase the speed of the system or method. Furthermore,it should be noted that any of the devices or equipment discussed inrelation to FIGS. 1-7 could be used to perform one or more of theactions in FIGS. 8-15.

It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that methodsinvolved in the present disclosure may be embodied in a computer programproduct that includes a computer-usable and/or readable medium. Forexample, such a computer-usable medium may consist of a read-only memorydevice, such as a CD-ROM disk or conventional ROM device, or a randomaccess memory, such as a hard drive device or a computer diskette,having a computer-readable program code stored thereon. It should alsobe understood that methods, techniques, and processes involved in thepresent disclosure may be executed using processing circuitry. Forinstance, calculating a confidence level to determine whether toautomatically delete a duplicate copy of a media asset, e.g., byprocessing circuitry 606 of FIG. 6. The processing circuitry, forinstance, may be a general purpose processor, a customized integratedcircuit (e.g., an ASIC), or a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)within user equipment 600, media content source 716, or media guidancedata source 718. For example, the attributes of media assets, may bestored in, and retrieved from, storage 608 of FIG. 6, or media guidancedata source 718 of FIG. 7. Furthermore, processing circuitry, or acomputer program, may update configuration data of the media guidanceapplication, which may be stored within storage 608 of FIG. 6 or mediaguidance data source 718 of FIG. 7.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted, the systems and/or methods described above may be applied to,or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

While some portions of this disclosure may make reference to“convention,” any such reference is merely for the purpose of providingcontext to the invention(s) of the instant disclosure, and does not formany admission as to what constitutes the state of the art.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for performing an action relative to aduplicate copy of a media asset, the method comprising: identifying afirst media asset in a database of media assets stored on a localstorage device; determining a first set of attributes corresponding tothe first media asset; searching for a second media asset that has amatching attribute with one or more of the first set of attributes;comparing the first set of attributes corresponding to the first mediaasset with a second set of attributes corresponding to the second mediaasset to generate a similarity metric between the first media asset andthe second media asset; determining whether the first media asset andthe second media asset correspond to a same media content based on thesimilarity metric; and in response to determining that the first mediaasset and the second media asset correspond to the same media content:selecting an action to perform relative to one of the first media assetand the second media asset based at least in part on the first set ofattributes and the second set of attributes; retrieving a success metricthat represents a past success rate of incidents when no user correctionwas received to revert automatic performance of the action; determininga confidence level relating to automatically performing the selectedaction relative to the one of the first media asset and the second mediaasset by combining the similarity metric and the success metric; and inresponse to determining that the confidence level is greater than apre-defined confidence threshold, automatically performing thedetermined action relative to the one of the first media asset and thesecond media asset.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the actioncomprises selection of a media asset for deletion, further comprising:retrieving a set of media asset configuration rules from a user profile,wherein the set of media asset configuration rules indicate a preferencecharacteristic of a media asset or a restriction characteristic of amedia asset; comparing the first set of attributes with the set of mediaasset configuration rules to generate a first compliance scoreindicative of a first level that the first media asset is compliant withthe set of media asset configuration rules; comparing the second set ofattributes with the set of media asset configuration rules to generate asecond compliance score indicative of a second level that the secondmedia asset is compliant with the set of media asset configurationrules; in response to determining that the first compliance score islower than the second compliance score, selecting the first media assetfor deletion from the local storage device; and in response todetermining that the first compliance score is higher than the secondcompliance score, selecting the second media asset for deletion from thelocal storage device after the second media asset is previously storedat the local storage device, or removing the second media asset from arecoding schedule before the second media asset is stored at the localstorage device.
 3. The method of claim 1 further comprising: retrievinginformation relating to a list of user devices from a user profile;comparing the first set of attributes and the second set of attributeswith the information relating to the list of user devices, respectively;determining whether one or more attributes from the first set ofattributes or the second set of attributes are consistent withinformation relating to a first user device from the list of userdevices; in response to determining that the one or more attributes fromthe first set of attributes is consistent with information relating tothe first user device, selecting the first media asset as the one of thefirst media asset and the second media asset.
 4. The method of claim 3,wherein the action comprises transferring media content from one deviceto another, and further comprising: transmitting the first media assetfrom the local storage device to the first device.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the comparing the first set of attributes correspondingto the first media asset with the second set of attributes correspondingto the second media asset to generate a similarity metric between thefirst media asset and the second media asset comprises: for eachattribute from the first set of attributes: determining whether anattribute from the first set of attributes overlaps with a respectiveattribute from the second set of attributes for more than a pre-definedthreshold; and in response to determining that the respective attributesoverlap, computing a respective overlap percentage that the respectiveattributes from the first set of attributes overlap with the respectivematching attributes from the second set of attributes; and determiningthe similarity metric by computing a weighted sum over all overlappercentages between the retrieved attributes and their respectivematching attributes, wherein each overlap percentage is weighted by arespective pre-defined weight corresponding to a type of the respectiveattribute.
 6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: retrieving afirst attribute having a first data format from the first set ofattributes and a second attribute having a second data format from thesecond set of attributes; translating, via a lookup table specifyingvariations of data formats corresponding to each attribute type, thefirst attribute having the first data format to the second data format;and comparing the translated first attribute with the second attribute.7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: retrieving, from adatabase, a comparison logic rule specifying a matching scenario wherean attribute match for a first type of attribute and an attributemismatch for a second type of attribute are identified; determiningwhether attributes of the first type and of second type from the firstset of attributes and counterpart attributes of the first type and ofsecond type from the second set of attributes satisfy the matchingscenario specified in the comparison logic rule; and in response todetermining that the attributes of the first type and of second typefrom the first set of attributes and the counterpart attributes of thefirst type and of second type from the second set of attributes satisfythe matching scenario specified in the comparison logic rule, applying acomparison result specified in the comparison logic rule that indicateswhether the first media asset and the second media asset correspond tothe same media content.
 8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:retrieving the similarity metric; determining the success metriccorresponding to the selected action by: retrieving a record ofpreviously performed actions and respective media assets that theactions have been previously performed upon; searching the record ofpreviously performed actions and media assets that the actions have beenpreviously performed upon based on one or more attributes correspondingto the one of the first media asset and the second media asset; inresponse to the search, obtaining a subset of previously performedactions and respective media assets that the actions have beenpreviously performed upon that have the one or more attributes; andcalculating the success metric as a percentage of successful occurrencesamong the subset of previously performed actions, wherein in eachsuccessful occurrence, no user correction to revert the respectiveaction was requested after the respective action was automaticallyperformed; and determining the confidence level as a weighted sum of thesimilarity metric and the success metric using pre-defined weights. 9.The method of claim 1, wherein the determining a first set of attributescorresponding to the first media asset comprises: retrieving metadatacorresponding to the first media asset; retrieving a list of pre-definedattribute types selected from a group consisting of an English titlecorresponding to the first media asset, a title in a foreign languagecorresponding to the first media asset, an index corresponding to themedia asset, a description of the media asset, an actor namecorresponding to the media asset, a director name corresponding to themedia asset, a display resolution parameter corresponding to the mediaasset, a media asset length, a user rating, and a media asset ratingcorresponding to the media asset; and for each pre-defined attributetype from the list of pre-defined attribute types, parsing the metadatato extract data corresponding to the pre-defined attribute type.
 10. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the action comprises setting a deletionpriority for a media asset, further comprising: determining a firstformat associated with the first media asset and a second formatassociated with the second media asset; determining that the user has apreference for the first format, or the first format has a bettercontent quality compared to the second format; and automatically settinga deletion priority associated with the first media asset to be greaterthan a deletion priority associated with the second media asset, whereinthe deletion priority determines an order in which media assets aredeleted, such that the second media asset will be deleted before thefirst media asset.
 11. A system for performing an action relative to aduplicate copy of a media asset, the system comprising: a local storagedevice; and processing circuitry configured to: identify a first mediaasset in a database of media assets stored on the local storage device;determine a first set of attributes corresponding to the first mediaasset; search for a second media asset that has a matching attributewith one or more of the first set of attributes; compare the first setof attributes corresponding to the first media asset with a second setof attributes corresponding to the second media asset to generate asimilarity metric between the first media asset and the second mediaasset; determine whether the first media asset and the second mediaasset correspond to a same media content based on the similarity metric;and in response to determining that the first media asset and the secondmedia asset correspond to the same media content: select an action toperform relative to one of the first media asset and the second mediaasset based at least in part on the first set of attributes and thesecond set of attributes; retrieve a success metric that represents apast success rate of incidents when no user correction was received torevert automatic performance of the action; determine a confidence levelrelating to automatically performing the selected action relative to theone of the first media asset and the second media asset by combining thesimilarity metric and the success metric; and in response to determiningthat the confidence level is greater than a pre-defined confidencethreshold, automatically perform the determined action relative to theone of the first media asset and the second media asset.
 12. The systemof claim 11, wherein the action comprises selection of a media asset fordeletion from the local storage device, and wherein the processingcircuitry is further configured to: retrieve a set of media assetconfiguration rules from a user profile, wherein the set of media assetconfiguration rules indicate a preference characteristic of a mediaasset or a restriction characteristic of a media asset; compare thefirst set of attributes with the set of media asset configuration rulesto generate a first compliance score indicative of a first level thatthe first media asset is compliant with the set of media assetconfiguration rules; compare the second set of attributes with the setof media asset configuration rules to generate a second compliance scoreindicative of a second level that the second media asset is compliantwith the set of media asset configuration rules; in response todetermining that the first compliance score is lower than the secondcompliance score, select the first media asset for deletion from thelocal storage device; and in response to determining that the firstcompliance score is higher than the second compliance score, select thesecond media asset for deletion from the local storage device after thesecond media asset is previously stored at the local storage device, orremove the second media asset from a recoding schedule before the secondmedia asset is stored at the local storage device.
 13. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:retrieve information relating to a list of user devices from a userprofile; compare the first set of attributes and the second set ofattributes with the information relating to the list of user devices,respectively; determine whether one or more attributes from the firstset of attributes or the second set of attributes are consistent withinformation relating to a first user device from the list of userdevices; in response to determining that the one or more attributes fromthe first set of attributes is consistent with information relating tothe first user device, select the first media asset as the one of thefirst media asset and the second media asset.
 14. The system of claim13, wherein the action comprises transferring media content from onedevice to another, and wherein the processing circuitry is furtherconfigured to: transmit the first media asset from the local storagedevice to the first device.
 15. The system of claim 11, wherein theprocessing circuitry, when comparing the first set of attributescorresponding to the first media asset with the second set of attributescorresponding to the second media asset to generate a similarity metricbetween the first media asset and the second media asset, is furtherconfigured to: for each attribute from the first set of attributes:determine whether an attribute from the first set of attributes overlapswith a respective attribute from the second set of attributes for morethan a pre-defined threshold; and in response to determining that therespective attributes overlap, compute a respective overlap percentagethat the respective attributes from the first set of attributes overlapwith the respective matching attributes from the second set ofattributes; and determine the similarity metric by computing a weightedsum over all overlap percentages between the retrieved attributes andtheir respective matching attributes, wherein each overlap percentage isweighted by a respective pre-defined weight corresponding to a type ofthe respective attribute.
 16. The system of claim 15, wherein theprocessing circuitry is further configured to: retrieve a firstattribute having a first data format from the first set of attributesand a second attribute having a second data format from the second setof attributes; translate, via a lookup table specifying variations ofdata formats corresponding to each attribute type, the first attributehaving the first data format to the second data format; and compare thetranslated first attribute with the second attribute.
 17. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:retrieve, from a database, a comparison logic rule specifying a matchingscenario where an attribute match for a first type of attribute and anattribute mismatch for a second type of attribute are identified;determine whether attributes of the first type and of second type fromthe first set of attributes and counterpart attributes of the first typeand of second type from the second set of attributes satisfy thematching scenario specified in the comparison logic rule; and inresponse to determining that the attributes of the first type and ofsecond type from the first set of attributes and the counterpartattributes of the first type and of second type from the second set ofattributes satisfy the matching scenario specified in the comparisonlogic rule, apply a comparison result specified in the comparison logicrule that indicates whether the first media asset and the second mediaasset correspond to the same media content.
 18. The system of claim 11,wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: retrieve thesimilarity metric; determine the success metric corresponding to theselected action by: retrieving a record of previously performed actionsand respective media assets that the actions have been previouslyperformed upon; searching the record of previously performed actions andmedia assets that the actions have been previously performed upon basedon one or more attributes corresponding to the one of the first mediaasset and the second media asset; in response to the search, obtaining asubset of previously performed actions and respective media assets thatthe actions have been previously performed upon that have the one ormore attributes; and calculating the success metric as a percentage ofsuccessful occurrences among the subset of previously performed actions,wherein in each successful occurrence, no user correction to revert therespective action was requested after the respective action wasautomatically performed; and determine the confidence level as aweighted sum of the similarity metric and the success metric usingpre-defined weights.
 19. The system of claim 11, wherein the processingcircuitry, when determining a first set of attributes corresponding tothe first media asset, is further configured to: retrieve metadatacorresponding to the first media asset; retrieve a list of pre-definedattribute types selected from a group consisting of an English titlecorresponding to the first media asset, a title in a foreign languagecorresponding to the first media asset, an index corresponding to themedia asset, a description of the media asset, an actor namecorresponding to the media asset, a director name corresponding to themedia asset, a display resolution parameter corresponding to the mediaasset, a media asset length, a user rating, and a media asset ratingcorresponding to the media asset; and for each pre-defined attributetype from the list of pre-defined attribute types, parse the metadata toextract data corresponding to the pre-defined attribute type.
 20. Thesystem of claim 11, wherein the action comprises setting a deletionpriority for a media asset, and wherein the processing circuitry isfurther configured to: determine a first format associated with thefirst media asset and a second format associated with the second mediaasset; determine that the user has a preference for the first format, orthe first format has a better content quality compared to the secondformat; and automatically set a deletion priority associated with thefirst media asset to be greater than a deletion priority associated withthe second media asset, wherein the deletion priority determines anorder in which media assets are deleted, such that the second mediaasset will be deleted before the first media asset.